The first book I read,  “Barack,-Inc.: Winning Business Lessons Of The Obama Campaign“, by Barry Libert and Rick Fault gives a general introduction of how Obama´s election team used social media like blogs, Facebook, Youtube and of course their own site my.barackobama.com to build community and raise funds.

This book doesn´t go so far as to give detailed best practices of how they actually did it. It stays a bit on the surface, but as an introduction it does a nice job on outlining the role of new technologies in the US election and in describing the social and political context in which that took place.

A couple of days a go I got started with “Yes We Did”, by Rahaf Harfoush, who worked closely with Obama´s social media campaign team for three months in Chicago. This book goes much further than the first one and explains in detail how and which instruments where used by Obama´s team to mobilize thousands of agents of change throughout America.

Rahaf writes with energy and enthusiasm about how the Obama Team organized and applied Social Media tools to engage millions to participate in the democratic process.

She gives first hand testimonials about how the team engaged in a conversation with the public and persuaded them to join forces by donating cash, recruiting volunteers, persuading other people to vote or just spreading the word.

The book also describes how this campaign challenged the status quo of established politics and old ways to run a campaign like this, which is very similar to the old interruption marketing model.

The campaign that elected the first digital president is an exciting and inspiring case on the use of social media that could help brands better understand and define their social media strategies.

The deal is straight forward. You can book your holidays and decide what´s worth. If you find something you like, you do need to leave your credit card number and pay 10% of the deal in case you change your mind. That way you don´t take someone else´s chance to go. Of course there is a limited number of packages, but since we prefer you to pay we did choose quality stuff.

People have reacted like crazy on the blog. Within a day one blog post got 174 comments. Some were really excited telling how happy they were to be off on holidays, others were rather skeptical. Funny thing is, there is no catch and it does something with people´s mind!

The traditional purchase funnel is a linear process. It starts with awareness (consumers become aware of brands), than familiarity (consumers research and learn about a product or brand), consideration, purchase, and finally loyalty.

Why does this model no longer works? First it begins with a broad opening with many options (brands) than narrows down to one or few brands. The other reason is that today´s consumer behavior is rather a more circular process. This old model implies that consumers follow certain consecutive steps, in a straight line. According to McKinsey, the new Consumer Decision Journey looks more like this:

This whole process starts with exposure as people see and hear about brands. Then comes a trigger, which could be a first impulse to want something. These are the pre-stages of the consumer decision journey.

The first step is initial consideration. Here the consumer has a narrow list of brands (the contrary of the purchase funnel, where consumers has many options in the awareness stage). In this stage it´s very difficult to get through the clutter of ads and media bombardment.

Next, they move on to active evaluation. In this stage the number of brands and possibilities increase. Consumers reach out to family and friends and are actively researching brands on the internet and paying attention to ads.

Finally comes closure or purchase. Consumers are decided to buy, but have not yet decided on the brand, so in-store presence is really important here and packaging could decisive for a brand win the race.

The last stage is what David calls the loyalty loop in the postpurchase experience. Here consumers develop two different types of loyalty, which could be decisive in future purchases. Consumers are either active loyals, which is the traditional way in which people don´t really consider other brands. But there is also the passive loyals. Here consumers are open to buying that brand again, but are also open to other brands.

Which marketing actions can we develop based on this model?

David explains that marketing activities should be aligned with this research and buying behavior. There are 5 areas where you can consider your marketing actions:

1. Set priorities by stages: Which actions can you undertake in the different stages of the consumer decision journey? For instance, you could decide to spend less on the initial consideration stage, but substantially more on the active evaluation by stimulating third party sites to write about your brand, having testimonials published and spreading word-of-mouth. Which strategy fits best with your target´s decision journey?

2. Messaging. Align your marketing communications to allow and stimulate consumers to reach out for your brand.

3. Fundamental investments on consumers-driven markets. Make it easier for people to learn how to use your product and spread the word.

4. Win in the store.

5. Develop a seamless brand experience: consistent and integrated marketing communications.

Understanding consumer-driven versus company-driven touch points

Today brands no longer control what´s said and talked about theim. They no longer are the only source of stimuli and information about their products. With consumer-driven touch points, people actively search the internet, talk to friends and spread word-of-mouth. Brands must then align their strategies to consumers-driven touch points by being present (advertising and provide information feeding consumers channels) when consumers are actively researching for products.

Their gift, a black handbag with a big white bike on it contained a bell, a biking guide to the city and a BACC newsletter with interesting information about the organization and the projects it’s currently undertaking. With this campaign, BACC aims at raising awareness about this old, yet so timeless and sophisticated mode of transportation.

It’s a pity though that BACC´s communiqués are in Catalan. Given that Barcelona is a multilingual city, the organization misses out on a huge piece of potential target audience by choosing to target only Catalan speakers. From a communication stand point that’s a flaw.

Altogether the city of Barcelona is doing a great job in pursuing people to use bikes instead of conventional, energy consuming and environment unfriendly modes of transportation like cars, buses and motorcycles.

In March 2007 the city of Barcelona introduced Bicing, a service which allows subscribers to take out bikes from stations throughout the city for only 30 bucks a year using a chip card.

Bicing has some weaknesses though. For instance, you can only take out a bike for 30 minutes each time and stations are often found empty. Nevertheless, Bicing is working really hard to make improvements as the number of users keeps growing. Also, the city council is broadening its biking infra-structure by building more bike ways and improving traffic signals.

This is a great development for a city that, like other big urban conglomerates, struggles with serious problems caused by an overload of automobiles. My guess is that from now on the priority lies in educating people about using and respecting bicycles. This remains a challenge as many motorists and pedestrians just ignore bikers and don’t acknowledge them as a serious mode of transportation.

It might take some time, but for sure Barcelona is biking in the right direction.

(…or just search lucas adventures in twitter and find out for yourself.)

This good response exemplifies some of the principles I laid out on my presentation. By offering people something useful, the presentation, I added some value to those who read it in my blog (social media). They in turn engaged with me and spread the word. Instead of money, I got something much more valuable than that: exposure and word-of-mouth. Much better in the long run.

That´s great! Thanks twitters!

Richard Branson, Virgin´s CEO, become a pop star in the UK because he rescued consumers from despair and negligence. He gave them respect and provided them above-the-average value for their money. Above all, he inspired people by having the conviction to fight for their rights.

My bank manager in Holland is a very nice guy (he works for the Rabobank). He first considers I might have “just forgotten” to deposit money when I am in red before blocking my account. He reminds me kindly I should deposit some cash, and never raises his “tone-of-voice”. I then feel embarrassed and cover the account right away.

As a consumer when you are treated like that, you have no choice but to respect and love back. You drop your guard, give permission to market and embrace the brand. All of that for no extra costs.